Gary Rowett is happy with the right mix of smiles and grumbles over the first couple of weeks of pre-season training.

The new Stoke City boss is carefully trying to rebuild confidence after inheriting a squad that suffered relegation – but that doesn’t mean he’s turning Clayton Wood into a holiday camp.

“I’m really pleased with how the players have been reacting,” he said. “The general compliance with sessions has been excellent and the work ethos has been very, very good.

“Players have had a smile on their face which I think always helps. After last season we want the players working hard but playing with a little enjoyment and freedom as well. It’s important they build that confidence a little bit.

“But at the same time we’ve had the odd grumble and when a player is grumbling you know you’re doing something right because they never want to work quite as hard as you want them to.”

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“There won’t be anything they don’t understand even if they might not necessarily agree with all of them.

“And we’ve got a lot of experienced players in the group. It’s about trying to give those players a little bit of a voice as well to give their input as well because there’s a lot of experience.

“It’s been a good start, there’s a good feeling about the staff and players and if you speak to them I hope they’ll say that while it’s been hard, they’ve enjoyed it too.”

The Bescot Stadium, home of Walsall. (Image: Google)

Stoke head to Walsall for a friendly this afternoon (3pm) before Rowett takes the group to Germany on Monday.

It’s a scaled down training camp – six days instead of the 11 planned by Paul Lambert – with a friendly against Bochum on Wednesday and back-to-back 45 minute games against Meppen and Hamburg on Saturday.

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Rowett said: “It’ll be good to get more minutes for the players and to see if they can impress us in terms of performances while at the same time, you’re always mindful that they’re still leggy, tired and fatigued.

“That’s kind of what you want because when you remove that fatigue you hope to see better performances. That’s how we’ve always built it up.

“This next week is very important for many different reasons.

“It’s common knowledge that at this stage you’ll still have some players who won’t be here for the season and there are some players are stepping up to the group with the challenge of staying up.

“You can never really get a full gauge of where we are and while you want to win, the result is secondary in my mind to the performance and some of the things we are doing.”